


Recurring Thoughts

by lady_wordsmith



Series: Memories (Bucky/Reader) [15]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Depressed Bucky Barnes, Eventual Romance, F/M, Guilt, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Past Relationship(s), Reader-Insert, Romance, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 06:23:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12475416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_wordsmith/pseuds/lady_wordsmith
Summary: Staying in the café to clear his thoughts had been a bad idea. He should have known Steve and Sam would find him. Sam, for his part, simply handed Bucky his abandoned phone and went outside, saying something about having to make a call and pissing someone off. Steve had stayed behind, bought himself and Bucky more coffee, and in hushed tones gave Bucky the most severe dressing down he could ever remember Steve giving him.After the encounters Bucky's had today, getting a scolding from Steve is almost a relief. If only he could escape his own thoughts, especially the ones he has about your neck...Meanwhile, you return home and send some emails back and forth, almost feeling compelled to do so. You just want to get this damn room rented.





	Recurring Thoughts

“Nothing’s _that_ important, Buck. Not even her.” Steve says with a sigh and a shake of his head.

“You wouldn’t understand. You’ve never… You just don’t get it.” Bucky replies, fiddling with the folded over lip of his paper coffee cup.

Staying in the café to clear his thoughts had been a bad idea. He should have known Steve and Sam would find him. Sam, for his part, simply handed Bucky his abandoned phone and went outside, saying something about having to make a call and pissing someone off. Steve had stayed behind, bought himself and Bucky more coffee, and in hushed tones gave Bucky the most severe dressing down he could ever remember Steve giving him. It wasn’t that he didn’t deserve it, obviously; running off and abandoning his phone in a less than stellar mental state probably would have rung anyone’s alarm bell. But those final words, about not even you being worth this kind of hell … Well, Steve was wrong about that.

“What do you even remember about her? Besides your feelings, besides the books. Tell me.” Steve asks, and Bucky actually glares at him.

“Enough,” he says simply, but pausing and thinking. “We protected each other from a HYDRA agent. She poked him full of holes with a nail gun to stop him from following us. I ended up killing him.”

“Jesus,” Steve murmurs. There’s no disgust there on his face, no horror. He simply seems confused. “Why? If he wasn’t going to follow you-“

“Because as long as he was breathing, he was a threat.” Bucky’s eyes flash with anger before softening. “I couldn’t let _her_ do it. She’s never killed anyone.”

“No, just grievous bodily harm with a nail gun.” Steve muttered sarcastically. “That’s it? You protected each other once?”

“What do you want, Steve?”

“Do you even know anything about her?”

“Her mother’s dead. Died when she was twelve.” Bucky says quietly. Steve’s face softens from his anger; Bucky knows that Steve always has had compassion for those whose parents had died young. “I don’t remember how, don’t know if I ever asked or she ever told. But she was the one who found her mother. And that makes me think… Well, you know.”

“Jesus.” Steve mutters, dragging a hand across his face. “Poor kid. She found her mom after…?”

“I think. I don’t know for sure. Might have been something else, but… Her dad’s never been mentally with it, he got worse after her mom died and last I knew they hadn’t spoken in a while. She’s an only child, but she’s close to her cousins-“ Bucky’s rolling through the facts about you in his head, almost eager to get them all out. Not just to prove Steve wrong, but also because saying it makes them real. The idea of saying things to make them real sends a chill up his spine, and for a moment he can hear the sound of a harsh wind rattling against windows as words rise in his throat, but when he shakes his head, the sound dies off and the words disappear.

“We already knew that, at least. From the research.” Steve sighs. “Okay. So I was wrong about not knowing her, you seem to remember some things.”

“Remembering more all the time.” Bucky says, a small smile of satisfaction gracing his features.

“I still think that you going in without a plan is a horrible idea.” Steve tells him, trying and failing to look stern. He knows he probably can’t dissuade Bucky, probably shouldn’t even try, but he could at least get his friend to think about what he was doing.

“Look, it doesn’t matter. I know where she is. That’s what matters.”

“If you’re sure.” Steve says.

“It was her. I haven’t forgotten her that much.” Bucky says, his voice defensive. He could remember the way you looked, moved, laughed. He might not have large chunks of your time together, but he remembers you, and could probably pick you out of a gigantic crowd.

But his mind isn’t completely on you. It’s on the man in your apartment. It’s on why the sight of your bare neck stirred feelings in him. And it’s on Will’s words.

_“What happened with her wasn’t your fault, either.”_

What did the old man know? Did he know you? Or was it something else entirely he spoke of, something Bucky couldn’t remember from somewhere else? The thought has struck him, once or twice, that he might know Will from somewhere, years and years before, but the thought has often struck him whenever a stranger glances at him for too long. He fears recognition, but if Will knew him from elsewhere… The old man, Bucky thinks, is playing a strange game. It’s another thing he will have to get to the bottom of.

“-so if you want to, you can. Buck? Are you listening?” Steve asks, and Bucky looks up at his friend with a look of confusion that makes Steve chuckle.

“Sorry,” Bucky apologizes, but Steve shakes his head.

“You’ve had a tough day, man. So what happened when you saw her? You say she didn’t remember?” Steve asks, his face now curious. The whole thing sounds strange to him, and he wonders if, perhaps… Dark thoughts are on his mind, and he knows Bucky’s mind has gone in the same direction. Steve refuses to voice those thoughts; not yet, not without more proof. Bucky just had the shock of his life seeing you again, and having him think HYDRA might have captured you and done something… Steve won’t do that without evidence. Right now he has pieces of information that suggest something has happened, something dark and potentially twisted, but he doesn’t have enough information to make any suggestion to Bucky, and he won’t drive his friend over the edge based on incomplete information.

Bucky sighs and sips his coffee before speaking, the events more depressing than anger-inducing now. “There was a guy there-“ Steve’s eyebrows shoot up, but he doesn’t interrupt and Bucky continues. “And I thought, y’know, husband, boyfriend, maybe she doesn’t want to let him know who I am, because how would you even explain that? But as she showed me the place…” Bucky trails off, sighs, and finally looks up at Steve, his face hard and impassive. His eyes, though, show clear sadness and pain, and Steve’s heart aches for his friend. It’s clear the experience was hard on Bucky. “As she showed me around, it was clear she didn’t know, y’know? Like she’d never seen me before in her life.”

“Maybe the guy was listening?” Steve asks, but Bucky shakes his head.

“Nah, even if he was… Her body language would have given it away. She was always a shitty actress that way. Could lie her ass off and keep a straight face, but she’d get all fidgety, y’know? Playing with her hair, biting her lip, fiddling with her pockets, all that. She’s good at quick get-up-and-go lies but she can’t sustain prolonged composure worth a damn.”

“And there was none of that?”

“Not a thing. And I don’t think she’s gotten better at lying in six years.”

Even as he tells Steve all this, Bucky’s thoughts keep going back to your bare neck, and he has no idea why. The recurring thought is mildly frightening. He wonders about his programming, if maybe there is some dark impulse buried deep within him now, to take your neck in his hands and just snap it, or maybe squeeze the life out of you. HYDRA might have put the thought there, in his head, and he would never know but he isn’t sure that’s it. Something about your damn _neck_ …

“What about the guy?” Steve asks.

“Nondescript, didn’t say a word, never even left the living room.” Bucky supplies easily, and it’s Steve’s turn to shrug and sigh.

“Might just be a friend.”

“I’m not getting my hopes up, Steve.” Bucky says.

He knows there’s no ring on your hand, but he knows that means nothing. The apartment was small, and you were a doctoral student who was probably living on a small stipend. Money probably was tight, especially if you were looking for a roommate.

Sam comes back into the café, joining Steve and Bucky at the table. “You tell him?” Sam asks Steve.

“I did, but he probably wasn’t listening.” Bucky raises his eyebrows and looks between the other two men, wondering what they are even talking about.

“What? Did I miss something?” Bucky asks,.

Sam rolls his eyes, takes Bucky’s phone from him and fiddles with it a minute before sliding it back to him. The email app is open, and an email from you is showing on the screen. As Bucky reads it, he finds himself holding his breath.

“She wants me to sign the lease.” He says, letting out the breath he was holding. He feels relief, but also fear, and maybe confusion. With how little he knows, and the uncertainty of what he does know, he can’t be certain that he isn’t walking into a trap.

“So what are you going to do?” Steve asks him.

* * *

That night, you find yourself sinking into your couch. You’re tired and aching down to your bones, and you’re certain you feel a bruise forming where you whacked your hip against the basement door at Hayden’s. You debate getting up and going to the fridge for an ice pack, but the couch feels too comfortable. You sigh, grabbing your phone and checking your email.

James has replied to your email, and that makes you a little happier. He’s the only one you’ve offered the room to, and you’re kind of hoping he takes you up on it. Clicking the email, you begin reading and almost let out a cheer when you read that he’s accepted your offer and signed the lease. Making a note to call your landlord tomorrow to update him on the roommate search, you reply to James’s email, asking him when he wants to move in. You’re surprised when you put your phone down and it buzzes almost right away with James’s reply.

**If it’s okay with you and you clear it with the landlord, I was hoping as soon as possible. Like, next week? I’d feel better if I had a place on lock ready to go.**

* * *

“Wilson, if you ruin this I will kill you.”

“Excuse me, who forced me to have to make a trip to Boston and back because he had a temper tantrum over a girl? Oh, look at that, she replied already. You must have made a _good_ impression.”

“… That’s it, I’m taking the bird back. No bird named after you now.”

“ _What_ are you on about? You know what, no. Let’s see what she has to say about you first.”

“Give me my phone, Wilson. Steve, make him give me my phone back.”

“Nope, nope. You lost it in Boston, that means you get phone privileges taken away until you show you can be more responsible… Oh, look at that. ‘I’ll check with the landlord in the morning, but it’s fine by me, James. The sooner the better.’ Oooh!”

“She doesn’t sound like that. Now give me my phone. Steve? A little help?”

Steve looked out the window of the train and sighed. “I hate trains.” He mutters, closing his eyes and pulling his hat over his face with a slight smirk as Bucky and Sam continue their almost nonsensical squabble.

* * *

You sigh as your phone beeps again when you’re getting ready for bed later. You bet it’s James again, and while your first impulse is too ignore it and sink down into bed, you find yourself grabbing the phone and checking your email.

**Great! If you could let me know after you speak to him so I know whether I can get my stuff ready, that’d be great, gorgeous. ;)**

**Should I give you my number so you can get a hold of me quicker?**

You roll your eyes at the flirting. You wonder if maybe he has someone helping him with his emails; it doesn’t sound too much like him at all. Not that you’d know his flirting style, but something about it reads fake. You bet James is more the quiet type, the type to move slowly, to watch and then make his move. This reads like someone attempting to forge ahead blindly, not like him at all.

In any case, you put your phone aside for a minute, wanting to go to bed, but then you pick your phone up again and type out a quick reply.

* * *

“See? She gave you her number! Am I good or am I good?”

“Wilson…”

“You know, Frosty, the more you threaten to kill me, the less I actually believe you will. Just take the victory and go.”

“I hate you.”

**Author's Note:**

> It's been over a year, and I'm sorry for taking so long, but updates will be more regular now.


End file.
